Tree sleuths are using DNA tests and machine vision to crack timber crimes
When 420 tonnes of deep crimson logs arrived at a Sri Lankan port in April 2014, customs officers cast a suspicious eye over them. The wood was en route from Zanzibar in Tanzania to Hong Kong, where it would probably be crafted into expensive furniture for the Chinese market. However, a tip-off from international police […]
Beetle infestation is killing South Africa’s trees – and no one knows how to stop it
After arriving from Southeast Asia about four years ago, the polyphagous shot-hole borer has spread a thousand miles across South Africa, from the eastern city of Pietermaritzburg, where it was discovered in 2017, to indigenous forests on the west coast near Cape Town. An unwelcome side effect of globalisation, the pest is believed to have […]
Genetic diversity of the pine pathogen Lecanosticta acicola in Slovenia and Croatia
D. Sadiković, B. Piškur, I. Barnes, T. Hauptman, D. Diminić, M. J. Wingfield, D. Jurc Abstract Brown spot needle blight (BSNB), a disease of pine trees caused by the fungus Lecanosticta acicola, has been known in Slovenia since 2008 and in Croatia since 1975. Recent outbreaks in Slovenia prompted this study to compare L. acicola populations in these two […]
Tree sleuths are using DNA tests and machine vision to crack timber crimes
When 420 tonnes of deep crimson logs arrived at a Sri Lankan port in April 2014, customs officers cast a suspicious eye over them. The wood was en route from Zanzibar in Tanzania to Hong Kong, where it would probably be crafted into expensive furniture for the Chinese market. However, a tip-off from international police […]
